Yuko
by MysticChaos
Summary: Sometimes we forget what is important in our lives and sometimes we need others to tell us what is. Yuko, a ten year old child, learns of this from two very different, but, at the same time, very similar, ninjas. Oneshot.


Yuko glared furiously at nothing as she sat on top of a crate box at the corner of the street, her dangling sandaled feet tapping rhythmically against the old creaking wood. Then the girl jumped down from the box and walked down the street, kicking puddles and rocks away from her steps, unconsciously avoiding the busy Hidden Leaf citizens around her.

"Stupid Mom, stupid Dad, stupid big brother…" Yuko muttered under her breath. She savagely slashed at another puddle on the road, its droplets leaping up to reflect the kicker of her simple shirt, shorts, and her pigtailed black hair with angry hazel eyes. She was young; maybe only ten or eleven.

As the child continued to walk, a boy close to her age saw her across the street and ran up next to her, a new Hidden Leaf ninja headband glimmering on his head from the sunlight.

"Yuko, I heard that you ran out of your house again! What'd you do this time? Kill the cat, or something? Oh, wait! I heard that you got into a fight with your parents about the ninja exam! You skipped it again?" the male boy said excitedly, unaware of the dangerous mood the female was in.

Unfortunately for the boy, the girl twirled around and pushed the young ninja harshly down to the ground, throwing the rocks from under her feet at him. Her friend shrilled in pain, got up, and ran off crying.

Yuko yelled after him, still throwing her rocks, "Shut up! SHUT UP! I skipped the test on purpose, you idiot! I don't want to be a ninja! My parents just don't get it! I DON'T WANT TO BE A NINJA, DARNIT!"

Panting after running out of rocks around her, the black-haired girl sprinted in the other direction, ignoring the whispers and stares she got from others.

* * *

Yuko squatted under a tree, half hidden in its shade. Her face was half hidden, half buried under her folded arms. A stick lay near her and on the sand there was a drawn image of one stick woman and two stick men (one of the men were smaller than the other) closely resembling monsters. 

Her eyes were still burning with fire, but were slightly swollen as if she had been crying before. Picking up the twig again, the girl scribbled more teeth into the smaller man on her doodle.

It was somewhat true of what her beat-up friend had said. Though she didn't kill the family cat (though she did kill the family turtle by mistake when she was eight; she just wanted to see what was under its shell…), she did run out of the house after fighting with her parents and she did skip the ninja exam for the sixth time in a row.

Yuko grimaced, remembering earlier in the day of what had happened.

It had begun all so suddenly and without warning as usual. The whole family was eating at the table, her mother handing out the bowls of rice, her father reading a book, her brother waiting impatiently for his father to start eating so he could dig in himself. Yuko was daydreaming at the time of little curious things like if dogs would talk in human speech in the future. So when her mother asked why she had to be so troublesome, Yuko first thought that she was being blamed for thinking of chattering canines. However, she realized a second later that her mother was talking about her exam that she had missed once again.

"What're you talking about, Mom?" the hazel-eyed child asked. Maybe if she pretended that she didn't know what Mother was talking about, maybe she would drop the subject.

No such luck.

"Your ninja graduation exam, Yu-Yu," the woman sighed, calling Yuko by her baby name. Yuko hated that name. She knew she was old enough by now to grow out of that silly nickname, but would her mom listen? Noooo….

Attempting again, the girl picked up her bowl of rice and mumbled out, "What about my ninja exam?"

Mother sighed once again. "Your teacher has told me that you skipped your exam and have not gone to school again. Why must you do this?"

Her words effect was instantaneous. Yuko's father immediately looked up from his book, a similar flare in his eyes indicating where Yuko had gotten her temper from. Her brother only sniggered.

"Aw, Yu-Yu, when will you ever catch up to me?" he said dramatically, moving his head toward her to make the sunlight sparkle on his own ninja headband.

Yuko ignored everyone, her grip on her bowl tightening as she continued to eat mechanically.

However, her father slammed down his book on the wooden floor, startling everyone.

"YUKO," the man snapped, his voice giving clues that enough was enough, "you WILL take and pass the next exam! I will not allow anymore fooling around!"

The female child smacked down hard on her bowl onto the tabletop, rice splattering over the board and floor. She also had enough. "No, I don't want to take the next test! I don't want to be a ninja, Father!"

Before the man could blow over, her mother took over quickly, "Yu-Yu, your brother is already chuunin and your father is a respected jounin. We have a responsibility to continue our great heritage. It is honor to be a ninja, little one."

As her mother spoke, Yuko glanced under her lashes at the forest green jounin jacket that her father wore and the metal plate of the ninja headband on her brother's forehead. Then she looked away. She hated green. She hated that leaf symbol on the metal plate. They mocked her decision on turning down the life of a "prestigious" ninja.

Realizing that none of them would get a response out of Yuko, her father growled, voice trembling under the strain of keeping his temper, "I don't care if you don't want to be a ninja. It is your obligation in this family to be a ninja. Your path is already set for you, child."

Yuko glared fiercely at her hands that were now folded tightly together. She whispered spitefully, "Then I should never have been born into this family."

Yuko's mother gasped and her brother groaned, both of them looking at the jounin. She had done it now.

"YUKO," the man now bellowed, his deep voice shaking the rice paper walls and doors around them, "YOU WILL BE A NINJA OR, HELP ME, KAMI, I WILL FORCE YOU TO BE ONE! STOP BEING A SPOILED CHILD THAT YOU ARE AND DO WHAT YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO DO!"

The girl stood up, face flushed from anger and eyes flashing like her father's. "YOU CAN'T TELL ME WHAT TO DO! I'M NOT YOUR TOOL TO BECOME A FAMOUS NINJA!"

"W-WHAT! WHAT DID YOU SAY, YOU UNGRATEFUL—"

"I SAID THAT I DON'T WANT TO BE YOUR TOOL ANYMORE! I AM MY OWN PERSON WITH MY OWN DREAMS AND MY DREAMS DON'T CONSIDER DYING POINTLESSLY IN BATTLE FOR A STUPID COUNTRY THAT WILL BE TAKEN SOONER OR LATER!"

"YOU ARE A DISGRACE TALKING ABOUT KONOHA LIKE THAT! HOW DARE YOU!"

Yuko, turned and slid open the rice paper door of the room, the sliding door bouncing hard against its frame. "I DON'T CARE!"

The father started to stand up to grab Yuko before she could leave, but her brother held the steaming bull down before he could do any real damage.

"WHERE DO YOU THINK YOU ARE GOING?" the man yelled, struggling with his son to get out of his grip.

Yuko stepped out of the area and before she ran off, she looked back at the room, eyes far away, and snarled, "I wish I was never born into this family. Why can't you understand that I don't want to be a ninja? I hate all of you. I wish all of you were dead!"

Her mother called out weakly, "Yu-Yu—"

"AND STOP CALLING ME THAT! I HATE THAT NAME!"

Then the black-haired girl hurried out of her house, trying to forget the shocked, hurt looks of her mother, brother, and father…

* * *

…Which was where Yuko found herself now. Yuko felt the niggling sorrow of her memory of their faces deep inside her, but didn't allow it to grow. After all, it was their stubbornness not to accept her decision in the first place. If they had stopped insisting then they wouldn't have to be hurt like that. However, the hazel-eyed girl did not feel guilty about her words. Where was the honor when you were dead in warfare for your country? 

And Yuko hated her family for not accepting who she was. For that, she really did wish that her family was dead. A bit dramatic perhaps, but she liked freedom more.

The girl savagely grabbed at the sand with the monsters/family drawn on it and threw it over her shoulder. She did it again and again as if trying to scratch out the picture from the ground, not caring how much of a mess she was making.

As the girl dug a small hole before her, she stopped when an annoyed voice cried out, "Hey…stop throwing dirt around!"

Looking irritably over her shoulder, she saw a boy somewhat older than her covered somewhat in sand. He was attractive in a dark kind of way with long black bangs covering the corner of his equally opaque pupils, fashionable black turtleneck and knee-length shorts, and boyish, slanted posture that emphasized his lean body. Even with the sand all over him, he still looked good-looking. Yuko recognized him as the boy that was always flocked by several girls and was always bragged about by teachers for being the best student they ever had in the ninja academy. However, ever since she stopped coming to school in her protest of not being a ninja a year ago, she never knew what had happened to him. Nor that she really cared. Being young and puberty still far away, she only thought of him as the kid with the cockatoo hair and depressing personality.

Still, here he was, also glaring at her as was she. Yuko's eyes flickered momentarily up at the boy's headband and guessed without any emotion that he had graduated from the last time she had seen him. Then she looked away from him without a care, continuing to glower down at the fissure in front of her.

"Aren't you going to say anything? Maybe apologizing?" the smooth voice of his speaking up again. This only incensed the pigtailed child even more, but she continued to ignore him.

He stood there behind her silently for a minute. Then he said, with a really aggravated voice this time, "Hey—"

"Aren't you the one whose whole clan was killed?" Yuko cut in tactlessly. She only realized now that there were other words spoken by the teachers years ago, besides this boy's greatness, when she was there. They were words of pity, or sadness to the boy's dead family and presumably crazy older brother. There was only one thing that Yuko learned from the academy, at least: she had learned how to sneak around and eavesdrop without a single sound, thus learning secrets that most people in the village did not know.

The question that the younger child had asked startled the boy, though his shock was hidden carefully with indifference.

"What about it?" he replied emotionlessly, sable eyes hardening into jet.

Yuko rolled her eyes. "You have no idea how easy you have it. No parents to nag at you all the time to do what you don't want to do, having to live up to their expectations which are pointless, never, EVER listening to you or your dreams, always living their life, being bothered by stupid brothers, working yourself dead tired just for your family's 'honor'—"

However, Yuko stopped abruptly at the sharp look coming from the boy's face. His obsidian irises were narrowed to slits, face tight with scorn. His expression, though, was what affected Yuko the most. Everything about it emanated regret, hatred, revenge…and sadness underneath it all. The shadows that had now covered his profile spoke of a darker story than what Yuko had heard from the teachers. He had instantly turned from the arrogant pre-teen from before to a cold statue. Yuko thought briefly that if reached out to touch him, her hand might turn into ice. He scared her more than anyone she knew. Even more than her dad.

"Ungrateful," he simply hissed. Then he walked away, not even looking back.

Yuko sat there in the sand for a few minutes, her mind trying to register what in the world had happened and why the boy's single word had so much impact on her. It hurt what he said. Ungrateful. Her father said it, too, but it didn't seem to matter much coming from him. Yet that word coming from a total stranger, from a boy that she did not care about, from a boy who had lost his family.…

Ungrateful.

Suddenly furious for reasons unknown to her, Yuko stood up, screaming, "So what if I'm ungrateful? I don't care! I am who I am! I can't change who I am! Besides, what do you know! You were probably too young to remember having a family! You don't know how it feels like to be controlled by them! You have no right to call me ungrateful! You don't know how it feels like! YOU HAVE NO RIGHT CALLING ME UNGRATEFUL!"

But no matter how much Yuko yelled, it didn't matter. The boy had already been long gone, the pigtailed girl only shouting at nothing, her words having no meaning. They were as empty as the reasons behind them.

Then it began to rain, the once sunny day turning dark, spring droplets flowing down, mixing with the tears that Yuko did not know she was crying.

* * *

Again, Yuko found herself in a different location, this time under a small jutting roof from the shed behind her. She was dripping wet from running around and had been trying to find a good place to hide until the rain let up. The rain was still pouring and night had fallen. People were nowhere to be seen in the downpour except for the occasional sprinting person who quickly ducked into a house or shop. As for Yuko, she looked utterly miserable. 

She was sitting in her squatting position, face half covered by her folded arms again. The ground around Yuko was turning into mud, the sludge creeping into her already wet clothes and sandals. Her hair was drenched, the pigtails loose and sticking to her skin, her clothes. She was shivering from the cold. Her eyes were no longer filled with anger, but only confusion, swollen with tears. She was staring at nothing once again, but it was vacant as if she wasn't really there.

Over and over again, she wondered why she was ungrateful. What did she do? Wasn't it right to chase after her own dreams or was that wrong, too? She didn't know anymore. That look that he gave her, too…

Yuko shivered violently and the cause of it was not because of the cold. That boy had no family. Yet the way he looked at her, he seemed to understand her problem, but, still, found her unappreciative. He had a family and they had been killed while she wished for hers to be dead. Somewhere deep within her apprehended that he did know what he was talking about and that what she had said about her family was wrong, so very wrong. She didn't know anything, his look had said. Maybe she didn't. Maybe she didn't know anything at all.

"Uh…can I go under there, too?" a voice asked in front of her, cheerfulness lining his tone.

Yuko looked up with a jerk, her mind wondering for a second if it was that dark boy from before. Instead she saw a soaking wet (he probably was running around to find shelter, too), blond, spiky-haired boy a few years older than her, bright blue eyes sparkling even in the night. He had strange marks on his cheeks like whiskers and had a grin that seemed to echo his happy personality. He also had a Hidden Leaf ninja headband, but it wasn't the boy she had expected to see. Her eyes faded back to their vacant gaze and looked back to the muddy ground as she inched a few feet away to give the boy some space.

With a content sigh, the boy sat down from his standing position, crouching boyishly with his arms perched separately on both knees next to Yuko. They both were silent for sometime, the only sound coming from the pattering of rain around them. All of a sudden, the blond boy shook his hair rapidly, spraying cold dew straight at Yuko, causing her to give out an indignant cry.

"I'M S-SO C-COLD!" the blue-eyed boy shouted out, hugging himself with his teeth chattering noisily.

Yuko sputtered out in aggravation, looking fiercely at the boy. "What was that for?"

The blonde looked blankly back at the black-haired girl, teeth still rattling. "W-What was w-what?"

Yuko frowned, but decided to drop the subject. She wasn't in the mood to fight at the moment.

Silence ensued once more, Yuko brooding and the boy making an odd sort of music with his rattling teeth. Then the male stood up suddenly, causing Yuko to look up at him with mild curiosity.

"Do you want to go and eat ramen with me?" the blond inquired out of the blue, looking down at her as if asking strangers to restaurants was the most normal thing in the world.

At first Yuko wondered tiredly why he couldn't just leave her alone. Then she imagined hot ramen in a warm shop, the scrumptious scent wafting up into the air and into her nose, her slurping hungrily at the noodles. Yuko's stomach grumbled loudly and the boy smiled widely.

"Come on!" he said, already running into the rain with an excited gait. "I know this place where the ramen is the best in Konoha!"

As he ran further and further away from the girl, she still sat there, pondering if she should follow after him. Then she got up, too, and hurried after the male to go to place where it was warmer than where she was now.

* * *

"Heh, heh! Ramen's the best food in the world!" the blue-eyes pre-teen said, as he dug into his second bowl of ramen. 

At the moment, both Yuko and the boy were at a small ramen stall where cheap noodles were sold and served. Though the place wasn't exactly the restaurant Yuko though it'd be, the stall was cozy from the boiling pots in front of them and was shelter enough to cover everyone from the still pouring rain.

Yuko looked at her steaming ramen that the boy had generously bought for her, the wooden chopsticks next to them not even cracked and separated. She moved her eyes a minute later to the eating boy next to her for no reason. After awhile, the male seemed to take a breather from slurping down the noodles and noticed that the girl was looking at him.

"What?" he said, one eyebrow twitching up comically.

Yuko shook her head and scowled at her noodles before her. Why did he invite her like this? Was this just his nature or was this something deeper? Why her? Most people weren't this friendly or this trusting. Who was this boy?

"You know," the whisker-cheeked lad commented sagely, "if you let your ramen cool, it's gonna taste really bad."

Yuko blinked out of her reverie and quickly split her chopsticks and dug into the ramen. The boy soon went back to his own bowl, too.

The pig-tailed girl hungrily ate the Japanese spaghetti, realizing that the last time she ate was lunch and that didn't even count since she ran out on her family….

Her family.

Ungrateful.

Yuko swallowed her ramen slowly and set down her chopsticks, remembering her pain, her confusion again. She needed something to distract her. Anything. She didn't want to think about her family. She didn't want to think about the word.

"Why did you bring me along? Isn't it weird to invite a totally random person to eat with you?" Yuko blurted out quickly, already feeling the tendrils of chaos reaching into her mind.

The boy stopped eating, though his cheeks were full of the noodles he was chomping down on. A small smirk tugged at the ends of Yuko's lips.

'He looks like a chipmunk,' the girl thought with slight humor. She felt the vines of turmoil receding.

However, the boy simply shrugged, remarking honestly through his stuffed mouth, "I don't like to eat alone. It makes me feel lonely."

Yuko frowned, not comprehending. "Lonely? Don't you have a family to eat with?"

"Nope," the blond replied. Then, only a second of hesitation later, said, "Only Iruka-sensei."

Yuko looked away from him, countenance unexpectedly devoid of emotion. Satisfied that there were no more questions, Blue Eyes went back to eating.

Iruka-sensei…? Yuko remembered that man quite vividly. He was the strict teacher that always found the students who were skipping class, always bothered them to stop fooling around with their lives, always the one telling Yuko's parents that she had skipped her exam and school. He knew that she didn't want to be a ninja and yet he still persisted. Basically, he was an utter pest to Yuko. He didn't understand her problem, but he still ran after her around the school and dragging her back screaming and kicking and still lecturing her as if she still had an inkling of inspiration to ever be a ninja. But, now, even she didn't know what she wanted.

Yuko knew that Iruka-sensei had no real family, so this boy couldn't have been related to him. Still, to consider Iruka-sensei as family was a bit far-fetched to Yuko's eyes, but to this boy next her, he was. Moreover, for some reason, she knew this blue-eyed boy was telling the truth.

Yet, what shocked her most was this boy...this boy…had no family. Just like that dark-clothed male that had a face as cold as ice.

Yuko opened her mouth several times, but closed them just as much. She had long forgotten her cold ramen, but was now preoccupied on asking her question. She was fearful that this lad would have the same reaction as the cockatoo-haired male and call her ungrateful. She wanted to know. She wanted to know why she was ungrateful.

Some minutes of quiet went by and Yuko sighed. The boy looked up and gave her a quizzical stare.

Swallowing down another batch of noodles in his mouth, he said, "What's wrong? The ramen doesn't taste good?"

Without warning, Yuko burst out rapidly, scaring the other child, "Don't you think having no family is great? No one to boss you around, no one to tell you what to do, no one running your life, no one telling you that it's a honor to do stupid things for your family, no one to say that you're…different, a disgrace…to…to your own…relatives...no one to…"

By this time, the girl's voice faltered and died as the boy's blue eyes met Yuko's hazel ones. Unlike that other boy, his eyes held no pity, no anger, no revenge. Just pure and heart-wrenching sadness that Yuko saw briefly in the dark-clothed ninja from before. It did not echo the word that the cockatoo-haired male had said. His eyes told of something else and explained everything.

Yuko realized, just then, that she was so lucky.

Then the boy shook his head and continued to eat, saying loudly as if to comfort himself, "Yeah, it's pretty great! You get to do everything you want! Pretty awesome, isn't it?"

The girl was silent, eyes almost overflowing with tears. Then her voice cracked, "I am so stupid. All this time and I didn't know. What he said, what you said... Kami, I'm such an idiot. I am so ungrateful."

Finally, the tears spilled and flowed down Yuko's face, no longer caring if she looked pathetic. Silent sobs shook the black-haired lass as the other boy sat there by her side, face frowning, but thankfully quiet.

It didn't take long for the crying to ebb away and when it did, the blue-eyed male asked gently, "What do you mean you're ungrateful?"

All it took was one glance at the ninja next to her and Yuko told him everything: her anger against her family, her resistance to become a shinobi, her opinions in why being a soldier of the village was ridiculous, her outburst at her family in the morning, her meeting with the cold boy, her confusion, and her guilt.

The blond remained quiet throughout this whole story, resuming his munching on the ramen. Yuko was puzzled. She didn't know why she was spilling her life story to a person she hardly knew. Still, the more she spoke, the better she felt. The confusion that she had was starting to fade and her dreams, her choices became clear once again. So was the task that was beginning to take form in the recesses of her consciousness. She didn't know what it was, but….

"…And, yeah, that's basically it," Yuko ended with a sigh that she found to be content to her amazement. She peered at the boy next to her warily, though, wondering if he had the same cold look as the other male.

He didn't. Actually, he looked like he hadn't heard a word Yuko had just said.

"HEY," Yuko snapped irritably, "did you listen to me or not?"

The boy blinked at her and grinned apologetically. "Um…not really."

The girl's hazel eyes sparked with anger, but they softened a second later. Looking away with an almost bored stare at the rain outside the ramen stall, she muttered, "And this is the reason why I don't want to be a ninja."

"HEY, what's that supposed to mean?" the male shouted.

"It means that all you ninja are stupid!" Yuko yelled back, looking back at the boy. It didn't matter if this boy taught her a valuable lesson. He was still a ninja and that still meant she was obligated to hate him.

"We're not stupid! We have to learn all these ninjutsus and you have to have a really good memory for that!"

"Memory and smartness are two totally different things! Just because you have good memory, it doesn't mean you're smart!"

"Yes, it does!"

"No, it doesn't!"

"YES, IT DOES!"

"NO, IT DOESN'T!"

The two glared at each other and huffed angrily as they turned their heads to ignore the other.

"And besides, you ninjas are all about honor and stuff. Honor doesn't help you in battle. That's another why all of you are so stupid," Yuko grumbled. She felt the blond bristle behind her, but the tense atmosphere turned to bafflement.

The boy's voice carried over to the girl, saying, "What're you talking about? Ninjas have honor, yeah, but that's not why we fight and all…at least, not me."

Yuko blinked. She gazed back at the blue-eyed lad. Dumbly, she questioned, "Meh?"

The shinobi lifted an eyebrow at the child next to him. "I fight so I can become the next hokage. Not for honor."

The pigtailed female gaped at the whiskered boy, both from his words and the meaning behind them. Closing her mouth that had fallen open from astonishment, she said, "So…are there others who become ninjas for different reasons?"

"Uh…yeah," the male answered, his turn to look at the girl as if she was the one that was stupid, "there are a lot of different reasons why we become shinobi."

"Like what?"

The boy shrugged. "Some of them just want to be strong. Some do it protect others. Some just do it because of their parents. Others…"

Yuko watched the boy pucker his eyebrows in his funny way. He continued, his voice unsure, "Others want to do it for revenge."

The young lass's mind immediately went back to the boy whose whole clan was killed. She could imagine him becoming a ninja just for revenge. He practically oozed with that kind of anger.

Yuko blinked and fingered a hole in the wood table that they were eating on. So…the ninjas weren't only being ninjas for honor. Then she gasped. What if…what if her father and brother weren't ninjas because of their obligation to the family tradition? Yuko was sure that was partly the reason why they were shinobi, but what if there were other reasons? She never asked because she never thought they would _have_ other reasons.

So all along….

All this time she never….

Yuko closed her eyes. She was so stupid. How could she assume what she did? How could she not know that? Not only that, but her foolish wish for her family to be dead…

Yuko had made a very big mistake and she wasn't sure if she could fix it. She had been so wrong all this time….

The hazel-eyed girl looked blankly at her ramen that she had barely touched. Maybe there was a way, but it was not a way that she liked. Still, it was the best and only way to fix everything, to redeem herself from the assumptions she had made. The task that had started to form when she told the blond boy about her problems was now complete. She knew what it was and she now knew what she had to do now.

Standing up suddenly, Yuko ran out of the ramen stand, out of the warmth and into the raining, cold night. She heard the boy call out to her, "Hey, what're you going to do with your food?"

Yuko yelled hastily, "You can eat it!"

The child continued to sprint in the empty roads, splashing up puddles and mud until she was soaked through once more. The girl tripped once, covering herself in sludge. She didn't care, however. Her mission was much more important.

* * *

As Yuko neared her house, the rain had already ended, revealing a beautiful navy velvet sky, diamonds thrown across its wide expanse. The moon was bright and shone down on the path the girl was darting on as if to lead the way, to guide her, to give her courage to keep on running. Before she opened the wooden gateway to her house, she stopped to look up at the sky. Her hazel eyes were fearful, afraid that maybe her outburst in the morning was unforgivable. Before she could lose her nerve, she shook her head, irises hardening into stone, her mouth set in a thin, stubborn line. Then she opened the gate door and crept in. 

The house was deathly quiet and in full light, which was odd since most of the lights were off by this time. There was also usually some sort of noise, like the thumping of her brother training with their father after dinner. Heart beating nervously, Yuko took off her shoes at the entrance and slid open the rice paper doors.

"Mother?" the girl called out, her small voice echoing loudly in the still home.

A shadow appeared near the end of the hallway in front of Yuko and her mother came out of one of the rooms, eyes wide with worry, face tight with apprehension. Yuko waved hesitantly, chest heavy with guilt for making her mom fret so again and again. The child wondered if this was how her mother looked like every single time she ran away from home. She had never really noticed before.

With a strangled cry, Yuko's mother ran toward her daughter and hugged her tightly to her, having to bend down to her knees because of Yuko's diminutive size. Yuko never liked being hugged by her parents since she thought she was too old for that kind of thing…but as she thought about that black-clothed boy and the blue-eyed ninja and how they never would ever be able to feel a mother's hug again, Yuko knew that she was very fortunate to have such a chance like this. Yuko embraced her mother back.

The two of them were like this for a while, the child's mother's relieved tears dripping into her already wet and dirty clothes. However, no matter how much Yuko appreciated this obvious show of affection, she had to move on.

The black-haired lass gently eased the woman off of her and said slowly, "Mom, I going to talk to Dad, now, okay? Where is he?"

Mother started, eyes turning from relief to troubled, "I don't think right now is a good time, Yu-Y—ah, Yuko —"

"You can still call me Yu-Yu, Mom. I don't mind anymore," Yuko cut her mother off.

The older woman's eyes squinted as if she doubted who was in front of her. Then they widened, understanding that something about her daughter had changed. Slowly, Yuko's mother got up on her feet.

"He's at his study," she said, her expression still wearing one of wonder at what had changed her Yuko so.

The young girl only nodded as she walked quickly, but quietly to her father's study room. She remembered faintly that he always went there when he was angry and Yuko had always avoided the room like the plague, even if her father wasn't in the room. It always had a sense of tension around it. Now, she was headed to that very same place

As she turned the corner of the house, she bumped smack into the chest of her older brother. Before the lass could crash on her butt, the chuunin took hold of her arm to steady her. Yuko blinked. He never did that before. He had always let her fall.

The girl looked up and saw that her sibling had an emotionless face, the kind he always wore when he was going to cry or was panicked. They looked at each other like that for a few seconds until he let go the girl's arm and walked off into the other direction.

"Wait! Wait up!" Yuko hissed, not daring to raise her voice in case her father heard and came running before she was ready to talk to him.

Yuko's brother didn't stop walking so the hazel-eyed girl had to trip him by grabbing his ankle and pulling it backwards, a trick she had developed to get his attention when he was ignoring her.

The boy fell forward, but due to his training as a ninja, he easily balanced himself with his hands and flipped forward gracefully, ending up somehow a couple of feet away, facing Yuko with fury on his face. It shocked the girl. She had never seen him angry. Annoyed maybe, but never like this.

"What?" the male snapped, arms folded across his chest. He looked a lot like their father that way and it intimidated Yuko. She never realized how much her bother looked like their dad.

"Um…" the small child started, "I just wanted to say that maybe later we could talk about why you wanted to be a ninja. I just thought it might be interesting…"

The boy stared.

And stared.

And stared.

Yuko felt a vein pop. "Whaaaaat? Stop looking at me like that! You look like I grew five sets of rabbit ears or something!"

Yuko heard her brother mutter, "You might as well have been," before saying in a louder voice, "Why do you care? I thought you were all about ninjas being stupid and only being ninjas for honor."

"Because I do care now," stated Yuko as if that sentence explained everything…and perhaps, in a way, it did.

The chuunin continued to glare at his little sister, but sighed and his stiff shoulders slumped. Looking at the moon shining down from outside the window, he whispered, "After you left the house and Father calmed down a little, I tried to find you and bring you back, as always. This time, though, I couldn't find you at all and I know that my tracking skills are pretty good thanks to you and your annoying way of running away."

Then he smirked, his normal self coming back. "You could be a pretty good ninja, you know, if you were able to hide from me."

Yuko didn't respond to this right away. When she did, her voice and eyes were far away, as if considering her choices. "I don't know. Maybe I will be someday."

She smiled after that, the first smile she had made in a while. She walked on, past her surprised brother and turned the next corner after that, not bothering to look back.

Soon, she was in front of her father's study. She gazed at the sliding doors in front of her, seeing the woodwork in the door frame. Yuko took a deep breath and exhaled, trying to calm her rapidly beating heart. She opened her mouth to announce that she was there before going in, but nothing came out. Yuko gulped. Each passing minute was weighing heavier and heavier on her until she felt like she couldn't breathe. Knowing that if her voice failed her, Yuko would have no choice but to just barge in. What else could she do?

Clenching her teeth, she moved the door sideways with a little too much force, sending it crashing into the boundaries of its outer frame. The cracking sound thundered across the whole house and Yuko flinched, eyes closed tightly from the sound. Then she opened them, slowly, and saw her father sitting at the patio just outside the room, smoking from his long pipe, the smoke wisps curling into the air. His back was facing her. Yuko shivered. She felt the tension in the air that she had so long dreaded. The girl took another deep breath and held it as she crept into the room for the first time in her life.

Quietly, Yuko sat in the middle of the lit room, wondering what her father would say, what he would do. She knew he wouldn't hit her as punishment. Yuko knew he didn't like to hit his own children and she took advantage of that. That was probably why she wasn't afraid of her father's anger as she should have been. Now, though, after saying her forbidden words in the morning, she didn't know how her father would react this time. Maybe he would do something worse than hitting her.

Yuko waited patiently for her father to acknowledge her as she sat there, trembling. She forced herself to stay calm, but it was not easy. She instead, settled with looking at the room around her to distract her from her fear.

The room was incredibly sparse. There were only two narrow bookshelves with a couple of worn books in them, one of them Yuko noticed was the one that her father was reading in the afternoon. Both of those bookshelves were shifted together against one corner of the wall while next to the shelves was a low cabinet, an intricate flower arrangement decoration perched on top of it. The girl guessed that it was set up by her mother to make the empty room a bit more interesting.

The wall opposite to those bookshelves had a full-length desk, a chair under the table. There was nothing on top of the desk and the chair was new. It seemed like the desk was barely even used.

The floors were covered with tatami mats, which were old and soft as if stepped on many times. The walls were stark white and had no decoration on them, except for one banner in kanji framed above the doors that Yuko had gone through. Though it was very elegant and beautiful, the words were too complicated for her to understand.

"Why are you here?" a deep voice questioned calmly, startling Yuko out of her observations.

Yuko looked toward her father. His back was still facing her and he was still smoking his pipe. Stuttering, she replied, "I-I…came to say t-that I-I'm...I'm…sorry."

"For what?" the father said, tone devoid of any feelings.

"For…everything."

Silence.

Continuing on in a stronger, louder voice, Yuko said, "I know I was ungrateful. I always was, I've now noticed. I have also noticed that I really was a fool for thinking that all ninjas were ninjas for only the honor of their families and themselves. No, they have deeper reasons for that. What's more…I didn't mean for you or mother or brother to be dead. For that I am ungrateful. I did not know how lucky I am to still have family while others don't. For all this, I'm really, _really_ sorry. I will never think like this again."

The father's head turned a bit. "And you are still adamant against being a ninja yourself?"

"…No, not anymore." Yuko reflected thoughtfully. "I may be a ninja. I may not be. I know for sure, though, I will not take the ninja graduation test until I find my own reason to become a ninja. Honor, I suppose, is good, but honor alone won't help me when I'm in a life and death situation. I'm sorry if I disappointed you."

The black-haired girl blew out her breath in relief. She was done. She had finished what she had to say to her father, to everyone. She hated apologizing, but Yuko knew she was at fault. She knew that if she had any chance to take back what she had said, apologizing was the simplest way to do it with the most impact. Yuko knew that her father knew she never said that she was sorry and hoped that her request for forgiveness would be enough to turn the tables.

The man didn't say anything for a long time, but Yuko waited it out patiently. She was at peace and nothing could scare her now…except the rejection of her father. Other than that, Yuko was prepared to stay in the room until her father forgave her.

The shoulders of Yuko's dad was stiff and the air was still crackling with tension. All of a sudden, with a long deep sigh, the shoulders slumped, the air grew slack, and even the pipe in the girl's father's hand was emptied out and set down.

"Yu-Yu," the male started in a tired voice. Yuko blinked. The last time he had called her by that name was when she was seven. "Do you see that banner behind you? It has been passed down from generation to generation, that banner carrying this family's motto. It says that 'tradition is honor.' This is true and I have lived by that maxim for my whole life…or so I thought.

"When you ran away from home today after saying what you had said, it reminded me of when I was young and when I had said the very same thing to my father. I remember hating that motto, that banner, because it was what dictated my life. I didn't want that. So, one day, I took it down, took the paper out of its frame, and wrote on it. You can still see it; it's around the bottom of the paper.

"When my father found out, he was furious and beat my legs with a bamboo whip a hundred times as punishment. After that, I suppose I was subdued and decided to live with the saying instead of against it. I grew so used to this idea that I had completely forgotten what I had done…until today."

Yuko raised an eyebrow, not unlike the blond ninja boy that was at the noodle stand. It was hard to imagine her serious, stoic father doing something like that. Actually, it was quite shocking. Still, curiosity won over her disbelief.

"What did you write on the banner?" Yuko asked her father tentatively.

The skin by his mouth folded, showing that he was smiling even though Yuko couldn't see it fully on his face. "Go look for yourself."

The girl obediently stood up and stepped over to it, looking below the beautiful, complicated black words. Squinting, Yuko noticed a small, untidy scrawl at the bottom of the paper. The words were simple enough for Yuko to read, so she had no trouble at all speaking it.

"'And honor are choices.'" Yuko read out loud, not really understanding the meaning.

As if answering her unspoken question, the man translated, "It means that honor is also having the choice to make choices. This way, we can bring honor to ourselves through our own work, our own decisions. My father, though furious that I destroyed that heirloom, never erased those words. He still kept them. As for me, I had forgotten all about them until today."

The man's daughter's eyes, still on the scribble at the bottom of the scroll didn't dare to meet her father's face. His words reminded her sorely of what had happened in the morning.

However, what Yuko's father said next shocked her.

"…And, so, I will not force you to become a ninja anymore. It is your decision not to be one and I will accept that," Father finished with finality.

The pigtailed girl swung around, pupils huge with astonishment. She saw that her father had now turned to face her, his face tired, but at ease. He made a hand motion to her to come closer, and Yuko, still at a daze in what the older male had said, stumbled toward him and allowed herself to join the man at the patio.

They sat like that for an hour in eased silence, Yuko's initial shock fading away, leaving only wonderment in how her father had come about this sudden change in his hard-headed personality. It almost frightened her, but it also seemed to lift her almost suffocating fear off her shoulders. Yet, the question remained in why the man decided to listen to Yuko.

The girl shook her head. Her mind was already complaining of the stress it had gone through that day. She would deal with this question the next morning. For now, she just wanted to unwind in this rare moment.

Yuko's father's hand rose up and patted his daughter affectionately on the head, brushing down her stray hairs. Yuko sighed contently. Though she wanted to be a grown-up and had shunned many aspects of her young life to be so, she still appreciated the occasional pat given by her father. He was never warm in the first place and it touched her to know that he had forgiven her.

…He had forgiven her….

Yuko smiled and felt her eyes droop. Suddenly, she was so tired. All that running and crying and thinking must have taken a toll on her.

The small lass felt herself picked up in her father's arms, too tired to resist. Small movements kept her barely conscious, her senses passing by sporadically; hearing her father talk softly with her mother, muscled, rough arms changing to soft, thin ones as she was moved from one person to another, and into her own bed, tucked in by her blankets.

Before Yuko drifted peacefully into the land of dreams, she felt a gentle kiss press against her forehead, her mother whispering a good night. Yuko grinned and, finally, her world fell into a shroud of warm darkness.

Yuko went on with her life the next day, still fighting with her brother and occasionally arguing with her parents. When she had turned thirteen she passed the ninja exam and passed the chuunin exams the first time she took it. Yuko eventually went on to jounin many years later for reasons for taking so long unknown. There were many rumors that she had her own dark, life-threatening evils, many of which were true…

…But that is for another time, another story.

Yuko never found the blond, whiskered, ramen-loving boy nor the dark-clothed, obsidian-eyed, vengeful ninja again since the day she had ran out of her house. She never figured out who they were either. Yuko regretted this, wishing to thank them for what they did. She searched for them endlessly, but, in due time, she realized that thanking them for the help they did not know they had given was pointless. She simply settled with the memory of them, the two lads that had forever changed her life.

What were the reasons that had finally convinced Yuko to become a ninja? What further lessons did she learn? What had become of her after becoming jounin?

We might never know until that other time, that other story opens once again to a new page.

Till then, Yuko's lesson, and perhaps to everyone, is that sometimes dreams and opinions must be changed to fit the circumstances. Though dreams should be kept, change is also good, and sometimes best.

The world never stays the same, dreams can change, and people can transform into the least expected. That never changes the fact, however, that you are still who you are, and change and ideas are only a part of what makes you, you.

After all, like Yuko's story, change is good.

* * *

A/N: Yes! My first Naruto (one-shot) fanfic! Mwaha! I am now officially a Narutard! 

Anyway, this story takes place the day after Naruto gets his first team, so, yes, this is when he's still a genin. Yeah, pretty far back, huh?

Well, what I was aiming for was not to make a romance or an adventure or anything like the ones I usually write. I wanted to write something different, something that you wouldn't normally read on this site. So, I decided to write how Naruto and Sasuke influences a typical kid about her life. No romance between them or anything Mary-Sueish. Hell, Yuko never meets the two again for Pete's sakes. I just wanted to make a story that's more learning than fighting.

Also, Yuko, as part of her personality is somewhat mature for her age, so if you think that her thought process is very...erm...complicated, I blame her characteristics.

I suppose that by making this kind of story, it's not going to be very popular, but I don't mind. I'm very satisfied on how this came out. However, if you, the readers, do like this and want me to continue with Yuko's life, I just might do that. Till then, read and review!

(By the way…you did know that the two mystery boys were Sasuke and Naruto, right…?)


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